~ Camp Bethel ~

What an awesome week!

Sure...

I'm exhausted, sore from walking up the hills, have tons

of laundry and am totally sleep deprived...but our week at

Camp Bethel was definitely a trip to remember!

We left at 2 p.m. Sunday headed for camp. I drove the truck and the

girls rode with me...we had the trailer loaded to the rim with luggage,

sleeping bags and everything else you can imagine.

We drove for about 20 minutes and I noticed that the two rear tires on the

church van were very low. We stopped and to make a long story short...

we had to patch one and replace another.

Here are a few of the boys

making the most of being crammed into a little service station office.

I think we were about half-way to Mountain View when black smoke started
coming out from under the church van. The fuel line had burst....or broke...
who knows what happened...but diesel was pouring out of it. We spent
about 4 hours in a church parking lot waiting for someone to bring us
another church van...

The boys spent most of that time playing softball.

The new van arrives and we pile in headed for camp....
Exactly 20 minutes down the road.....BOOM!
...A BLOWOUT! on the new church van!

The boys pulled together and had the tire changed in no time!

That old devil was trying his hardest to keep us from making it to camp...
A trip that should have taken 5 hours took us about 11.

We finally arrived at camp....the kids were exhausted and excited at the
same time. I don't think anyone slept very much that first night.

The next day we realized that no matter how many times you announce what
the kids need for camp...half of them would forget to pack it anyway.

There were some with no towels, blankets or pillows...some even forgot to
bring half of their clothes ;o}

Here's hubby preaching to the youth.

The zip line looked like a lot of fun...I didn't try it, Maybe next year ;o}

Kayla & Kailey with some new friends from camp.

You can't have camp without a pillow fight!

Our youth girls that went to camp.
The one on the far left 'Wendy' was saved on Monday night. Her sister
on the far right 'Ashley' was saved on Tuesday night!
They are both bus riders!
Stephen form our boys group was also saved on Monday night!

Kayla & Kailey posing for a quick picture.

This is the girls dorm. The lights were supposed to be out by 11:30 p.m.
but it was more like 12:30 or 1 before they went out. Then they were
usually up by 5 a.m. taking showers!

There were tons of activities to keep the kids occupied. Canoes, mini golf,
volley ball, paddle boats, basket ball, tether ball, bumper ball and lots
of games. They had the boys and girls separate for most of them.

Dalton playing water balloon volley ball.

Some of our boys playing volleyball.

This is our new friend from Amarillo, TX...her name is Shandi.
(I am sure that is probably not spelled right ;o})

They must like to wrestle in Texas ;o} The Texas boys were more than
happy to show our boys some wrestling moves. I think a lot of the
extra time spent in the boy's dorm was spent wrestling. There was
at least one boy in each group with a black eye ;o} They had a blast!

Hubby & Bro. John were in charge of a water game every day. The
object of the game was to tape an alka seltzer to your shirt and the
other team would squirt them with water...if yours dissolved then you
were out. Bro. John had no idea he had one taped to his back. ;o}

Mindy said that it took Bro. John longer to explain the game than
it took to play it...

We met in the tabernacle for morning worship services, a nightly sing
a long and night worship services. Our group sang specials 3 different times...
they were so excited about singing.

The kids were a little shy the first night,
but it wasn't long until they were all shouting & praising the Lord!

The Lord touched each and every member of our group. We came
home with a different group than we left with.
They are so excited and on fire for God. Some of them made vows to give
up their music and other worldly things. We even had some of the
boys giving devotions in the boys dorm.

I have to tell you about this one night...Hubby was singing the song
'I'm on the winning side'...Bro. John was playing the guitar for him. It wasn't
long before 2 of our boys were up standing behind them...then four
of our boys...then all of our boys were standing behind them....all arm in
arm. Before we knew it all of the camp was steadily finding it's way up
to join our boys.

I noticed that only a couple of our girls had gone...then I saw Wendy
sitting there with tears streaming down her face. She had twisted her
ankle the night before and wasn't able to walk up there on her own. Then
from the back of the crowd came 2 of our boys...they went and got her so
she could join the rest of the camp on the stage. It was awesome
the way the Lord moved through our group.

That's one of those 'you just had to be there' moments! Words could
never capture the atmosphere that night.

I know there were other groups that were blessed....but I think
ours received a triple portion.

This is a group picture of everyone who went from Holy Hills Baptist
church. You see the little boy in the red shirt? We have no idea who
he is...he just sort-of found his way into the picture ;o}

The trip home went a lot smoother...I was so proud of the kids!
Since we had to take up all cell phones and Ipods and such at the
beginning of the week...we took a minute to hand them back out. They
immediately started deleting off music and junk from them. Then they
were calling and texting their friends to witness to them.

Sunday Morning the kids sang and gave testimonies. One of the girls from
our group who wasn't able to go to camp was saved!

It was an awesome service!

I had to laugh when one of the boys told the congregation that some
of them were dry as cracker juice ;o} (he was right!)

So, if you are looking for a good King James Bible Believing church
camp to go to...I highly recommend camp Bethel in
Mountain View, Arkansas...

I am looking forward to going next year!